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The Unmuggable

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996.
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February 22, 1972, Page 36 The New York Times Archives

No union is more identified with New York City than the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, born in the sweatshops of the lower East Side more than seventy years ago. And no labor leader better captures the city's restless spirit than the garment union's honorary president, David Dubinsky. He deserved a friendlier greeting on his eightieth birthday than he got from mugger at the start of the holiday weekend.

But it will take more than a few blows and the loss of his wallet to drive Mr. Dubinsky into retreat from New York. He is already at work trying to organize more dependable round‐the‐clock protection for the entire neighborhood. Those who remember how much a similarly concentrated effort by Mr. Dubinsky did clean hoodlums out of the A.F.L.‐C.I.O. fifteen years ago will not discount this new crusade at age 80.